Npower sells gas and electricity accounts to growing Telecom Plus

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Harriet Green

Npower has sold its Electricity Plus and Gas Plus subsidiaries to Telecom Plus, the latter said in a statement this morning. In a separate statement, Telecom Plus announced it's seen "significant acceleration" in organic growth, with adjusted profit before tax up 10.1 per cent to £13.7m. Growth and increased customer numbers were seen on the back of the Big Six energy price hikes, it said. (Release)

Telecom Plus, which already sells electricity, gas, broadband, and mobile and fixed-line telephone services via its Utility Warehouse brand, is paying a total of £218m to Npower. (Release)

The deal will see £196.5m paid now, in cash, with a further £21.5m deferred over three years. Telecom Plus is also signing a 20-year wholesale supply agreement.It'll also see Utility Warehouse gain over 770,000 customer accounts nationwide. The group's gross margin will immediately increase by 4.25 per cent upon completion of the acquisition.

Telecom Plus saw services supplied up by 165,714 in the six months ended 30 September, taking the total to 1,767,774. Customers numbers also grew by 33,908 to 494,940 in the period. 60 per cent of new customers took advantage of at least four of the company's major services, it reported.

The company now has a customer base of over half a million customers. Andrew Lindsay, chief executive: "We have benefitted from the widespread publicity which has followed the recent price rises announced by most of the 'Big 6' energy companies, which contributed towards a further acceleration in growth during October to over 12,000 net customers and 50,000 net services for the month - taking our total base to over 500,000 customers."